


ghost drift

by radialarch



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 05:39:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15790062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: Drift partners, life partners.





	ghost drift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elopement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elopement/gifts).



The first time Jon goes into the drift is short. Ten minutes, at a generous estimate. It’s a training exercise to familiarize cadets with the interface, in one of the first-generation jaegers that’s been stripped down to core drift functions. It’s not supposed to be a big deal, a watered-down imitation of the whole experience; and no one would claim the title of _pilot_ until first flight, anyway. You’re not a jaeger pilot until you have a jaeger, and Jon won’t get matched to one for another couple of years.

Still, when Jon slides out of the cockpit, it feels like something’s changed. His knee nearly buckles when his feet hit the floor, and it takes him a moment to recover before he can let go of the railing and step aside for the next cadet to climb up. He keeps blinking, trying to get the world in focus, but he knows his vision isn’t the problem. It’s just that everything else feels less real, dream-like, compared to the clarity of the drift.

And on the other side of the jaeger, there’s Tommy.

Jon felt it in his _teeth_ when the neural handshake disengaged, when the jaeger powered down and awareness slammed back into his own body; but there’s some remnant tugging at his attention still, keeping him off-balance. _Ghost drift_ , Jon thinks distantly. The safety module had covered the possibility, but Jon hadn’t expected it to be like this. Tommy starts to cross the platform, and Jon nearly feels the motion before he sees it, matches him without a thought.

They go down onto the floor together, where people are filing across the dome in the direction of the mess. But hunger’s a distant afterthought in the back of Jon’s mind right now. He lets his feet wander toward the living quarters instead, suddenly desperate to be alone. All the while, Tommy’s a tall shape half a step behind Jon’s shoulder, where Jon can _feel_ his presence, sharp and focused while the rest of the world fades to irrelevance.

It’s quiet when he turns off the hallway. He punches in the door code without thinking about it, pure muscle memory. The lock flashes red, error, and Jon pauses, is about to do it again when a hand lands on top of Jon’s.

“That’s mine,” Tommy says quietly, leaning into Jon’s shoulder.

Jon starts, jerking his head up to check the number on the door. Tommy’s right. The lock hisses open under Tommy’s hand, and Jon tumbles into the room with Tommy, blinking a little to get his bearings. He’s been in here a thousand times but it feels like he’s looking at everything through someone else’s eyes: a little taller, a little broader.

In the drift Jon felt—connected like he never was before, a fierce wild sense of joy sweeping over him. He feels it still, tingling in his fingertips, ringing in his ears. Going into the drift changed him, maybe. He didn’t know. No one ever tells the cadets that you can’t leave the drift again. Some part of Jon; some part of Tommy; inextricably bound to each other, so Jon can feel it every time Tommy breathes.

“Tommy,” Jon says to break the silence, turning to look into his eyes, and Tommy says, “Hey,” in a voice quiet and hoarse, brings a hand up to grasp Jon’s shoulder like he needs the contact.

Jon wraps his fingers around Tommy’s wrist, feeling the tight line of tendons shifting beneath his grip, and then Tommy presses his forehead to Jon’s, laughing a little, a thin breathless sound.

“Didn’t expect it to be like that,” he says. “Not all the times I heard—my dad never said.”

Tommy’s wanted to be a jaeger pilot for as long as Jon can remember. “Changed your mind?” Jon says, a bright teasing grin curling up his lips. “Not what you thought, huh.”

“Better,” Tommy says, and raises his hand to— oh, press a thumb to the corner of Jon’s laughing mouth, soft and tender. “I’m glad you were with me.”

“Yeah,” Jon says through the sudden rising lump in his throat. “Me too, Tom.”

Tommy and Jon came into the academy together, knew they’d be drift compatible long before they set foot on the mats. It had been obvious to Jon then, the way Tommy understood him, that there could be no one else he’d want in the drift with him; and it feels obvious now, some fundamental truth being realized at last, when Tommy shifts his hand to cup Jon’s jaw and fits their mouths together, gently.

Jon’s eyes are closed; he doesn’t need them open. Maybe he’s been waiting for this. He’s licking into Tommy’s mouth, clinging to Tommy’s shoulders, and Tommy’s breaths are getting shorter in his chest. Jon thinks he can feel the beat of Tommy’s heart thumping in his own veins, the slow heat rising in his skin, and it feels good, feels _right_ , electric down his spine.

“Jon,” Tommy says, soft into Jon’s mouth. “Hey.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, “yeah, it’s me, come on, you know—” _what I want_ , Jon thinks, doesn’t need to say because Tommy does, of course he does. What Jon wants; what Tommy wants. There’s not a difference here. They’re both still suited in the bulky simulator jumpsuits and Jon feels naked anyway, lit up with desire.

“I’ll help if you do,” Tommy says, breathless, fingers tripping down Jon’s shoulder, tugging at a buckle there. “Why are these always so goddamn hard to get out of?”

“Don’t know why the designers didn’t have this in mind,” Jon agrees, and only manages to keep a straight face for a split second before the laughter bubbles up from his throat. Tommy laughs, too, loud and clear, eyes crinkling with it even as he’s untangling the straps from Jon’s shoulder.

Maybe the arousal’s been building up in Jon ever since they got out of the drift; maybe it’s Tommy, his hands brushing against Jon’s skin as he peels Jon out of the suit bit by bit. There’s some— feedback effect here, Jon thinks, tugging impatiently at a zipper, the way Tommy’s desire is being magnified in him and back again. It can’t be sustainable, to feel this much. He wants Tommy’s hands on him, Tommy inside him, all distance between them erased like it had been in the drift, he _wants_ —

"I’m gonna,” Tommy’s saying when Jon finally steps out of the tangled legs of his suit, pressing him back onto the covers of Tommy’s bed, “I will, c’mon, Jon, let me—”

Jon arches up when Tommy slides down and closes his lips around his dick. The breath is shivering out of him in pants, his whole body tight, while Tommy’s tongue runs across the head of his dick. “Don’t— mess around,” he says through his teeth, feeling his hips jerk. Tommy’s fumbling for something, one hand splayed on Jon’s thigh, thumb digging hard into the muscle, and then the other slips into the space between his legs, pressing back—

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jon says, “there you go,” while Tommy’s sliding wet fingers across his hole, and Tommy huffs out a breath against the inside of Jon’s thigh.

“Demanding,” he says. “Did I know you’d be like this?”

“Always,” Jon says, and knows it’s true. “Did _I_ know you’d be a tease?”

“Baby,” Tommy says, one finger inside Jon, and smiles when Jon clenches around him at that. “You’re gonna get exactly what you need.”

Tommy works him open, and he’s not quite as unaffected as he sounds, his fingers a little shaky. When he’s got three fingers at him Jon makes a desperate noise, says, “Tommy, please,” high and short, and Tommy fits his slick hands behind jon’s knees, pushes them up and slots himself between them. He’s pink all over, mouth bitten red, and it’s more than arousal in Jon’s belly when Tommy closes his eyes and slides into him, warm satisfaction and contentment all rolled into the rightness of it all; and that’s what he feels from Tommy, too, curling down to kiss at Jon’s throat, humming through every fiber of him.

———

“So,” Tommy says, lazily wiping himself with a corner of the sheet. “ _That’s_ not in any of the training manuals.”

“No,” Jon mumbles, half into the pillow, half into Tommy’s shoulder. He feels good, wrung out like he’s gone a couple rounds on the mats. He wants to lie here for a while. He could do it forever. “’s like— a nice little Easter egg, I guess.”

Tommy’s shoulder shifts beneath Jon’s head; he’s laughing, soft and warm, and when Jon lifts his gaze he’s smiling down at him, eyes crinkled with fondness. “Yeah,” Tommy says. “Real lucky we got each other, huh.”

_Not lucky,_ Jon thinks— maybe manages to say, he can’t be certain. They always would’ve found each other. Sliding into sleep, that’s one thing he still knows, right down to his bones.

**Author's Note:**

> written for elopement for her birthday! originally posted on tumblr; slightly cleaned up here.


End file.
